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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Lupercal said:
... not really? The transformation certainly adds a need to feed on human blood but it does not force the vampire to stop seeing humans as people.
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I really like this point of view, and sympathize with it, but the book is written pretty explicitly with the idea that nobody should let their players play one, and that does include specific and overt personality changes. I'll hunt up an example, to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

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page 113 said:
--- the personality of the Character is entirely and irrevocably altered by the experience. The new Vampire does keep his memories and his personality, but both tend to fade quickly and are forgotten. The truth is that much of the old personality is simply irrelevant in this new state, just as the personality of a sheep is of little use to a wolf. Ideas about friendship, morality, and duty are fundamentally changed when one becomes a wolf amongst Human sheep. Some people are able to act kindly towards sheep, of course, but in the end, they are there to be herded, killed, and eaten.
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There were a few more quotes more ambiguous than this, about whether or not the candidate was evil before the change, so I'll express a desire for a confused shrug emoji better than 🤷‍♀️ (I certainly wouldn't mind a better founded point of view alternate to this one, because being a vampire would be neat), but the general consensus seems to be that it's an ice sculpture in an oven scenario; technically preserved, but in practice it just melts a bit slower than the body takes to get renovated.
 
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I'm aware. I have every undead armybook and Night's Dark Masters. The latter does say you should never let players play them. It then included an entire chapter of rules that can only be used to let players play as a vampire. This is, needless to say, a bit of a mixed message. It is also only one source amoung several that BoneyM is using and the others disagree that they always change a lot.

My claim that it was unclear if it was being a vampire or being immortal and powerful that "changes" people (which is still only claimed to be an exageration of their previous personality) is also based on the text of Night's Dark Masters.
 
Consider that if they explore magic at all they will inevitably be creating dhar, that's going to screw them up, maybe not as fast as it would a mortal but it will.
 
DragonParadox said:
I think one of the greater issues is self fulfilling prophecy of sort. Most people who turn into vampires come from cultures that tell them that vampires should be evil, like those absurd Bretonian Blood Dragons Kasimir smashed. If you think you are damned from the moment of transformation than you will do damnable things.
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Not for everyone, but yes, anyone who is good because of fear of punishment or who gets strongly affected by how he feels he should act based on his place in society/expectations placed on them will jump off the deep end. People also may jump off the deep end, albeit less immediatedly, because they'd lose their support groups, either because said support groups now hate them or because they do not trust themselves to be around them.

Lupercal said:
I'm aware. I have every undead armybook and Night's Dark Masters. The latter does say you should never let players play them. It then included an entire chapter of rules that can only be used to let players play as a vampire.
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This is extremely hilarious to me... They cannot keep even meta consistency within the same book, holy shit. At least when that one Exalted did it with describing the personalities of the Primordials between different chapters, it could be argued to give the GM choice, even if it was done in a dumb way.
 
picklepikkl said:
is "all the Karaks founded before the War of Vengeance sundered the Elf-Dwarf friendship." So getting any old hold reclaimed and back onto the network would restore some power. Dum is probably not a reasonable choice for a permanent reclamation, but Drazh sure is with Eight Peaks and Azul as a jumping-off point.
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I'd quite like to spend an action to kill Gorfang before we go on the expedition.

SuperSonicSound said:
Consider that if they explore magic at all they will inevitably be creating dhar, that's going to screw them up, maybe not as fast as it would a mortal but it will.
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There are claims that they're immune to dhar corruption, like elves. It's just the mindset required to use dhar is problematic.
 
There's another thing to keep in mind which is that the first time a Vampire is made they wake up in a feeding frenzy and typically murder a bunch of people in their desperate thirst.
 
Alratan said:
I'd quite like to spend an action to kill Gorfang before we go on the expedition.



There are claims that they're immune to dhar corruption, like elves. It's just the mindset required to use dhar is problematic.
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Voting for next turn is probably going to be a knife-fight, I doubt we'll have the time.
 
Mopman43 said:
Voting for next turn is probably going to be a knife-fight, I doubt we'll have the time.
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I concur. Here's my list of actions that I think are in plausible competition for our two slots:
  • Join Expedition at Praag
    Pro: getting an early start on the exciting confluence of characters (read: drama explosion waiting to happen) that will be this expedition. Con: Not getting to do something else on this list.
  • Train our Mantle of Mist Arcane Mark
    Safety from airborne hazards and personal magical development.
  • Train our Windsight against Pall of Darkness
    Neat combat trick and advancing Windsight for a potential upgraded trait down the line.
  • Scout More
    Depending on if we learn any gamechanging information from the scouting action this turn that would have been useless if we acquired it during expedition turns, a strong voting bloc might emerge for doing more scouting.
  • Recruit More
    I know some people want to go pick up more friends.
  • Develop Fog Path Spell
    Maybe it'll turn out that two turns wasn't enough.
I think there's a reasonable chance that people might successfully lobby for taking a second Overwork action next turn, imposing a -10 penalty on our T34, for the sake of squeezing in even more prep.
 
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DarknessSmiles said:
yea. no way is assassinating gorfang gonna make the docket next turn.
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We do have 2 actions next turn.
Contenders are:
  • See through Pall of Darkness
  • Join the expedition early
  • Finish Fog Path if it's not done yet
  • Learn Kurgan Customs (We could've used that this turn)
  • Learn Kurgan Language (see above)
  • Finish the Grey College spellbook (Non-Battle Magic)
I don't see killing Gorfang getting a lot of votes.
 
Mopman43 said:
The Age of Three Emperors has its official start in 1547 IC. Kragg would have been in his 600s, thoroughly a Living Ancestor.
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Huh. For some reason I had it in my head it started immediately after Mandred's assassination in the 1100s, but you're right.


Vampire-wise, I'm of the opinion that while generally speaking becoming a vampire doesn't radically alter who you are, simply exaggerating your most prominent traits, it does detach you slightly from humanity. You become aware that you aren't human anymore, and lack a lot of the instincts humanity has to not hurt or kill other members of an in-group. You can still be a good person, but it becomes easier to be a bad one, even if you had little inclination that way before.
 
LightLan said:
We do have 2 actions next turn.
Contenders are:
  • See through Pall of Darkness
  • Join the expedition early
  • Finish Fog Path if it's not done yet
  • Learn Kurgan Customs (We could've used that this turn)
  • Learn Kurgan Language (see above)
  • Finish the Grey College spellbook (Non-Battle Magic)
I don't see killing Gorfang getting a lot of votes.
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Learn Kurgan anything is right out. We can't complete it in time for it to matter as it will need two ap. Three for the language.

Finish the grey college spellbook might tickle the completionists fancy but is similarly worthless because there's nothing the spells give us that we can't do a different way already.

Of the remaining three it's finish fog path, which might not be needed if we knock the rolls out of the park this turn again and see through pall of darkness which as a player suggested action probably has little utility, certainly the high end possibility of "Can totes see through it" with our windsight is actually unlikely.

Yes I'm arguing against my previous position.

Leaving two slots free, with join the expedition being the only one left from that list. So I see assassinating Rotfang as quite a plausible pick as it will be a flex action and you know what given we'd be doing it protector coin on. Almost definitely worthwhile.
 
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LightLan said:
Finish the Grey College spellbook (Non-Battle Magic)
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This is purely aesthetic at this point, right? Like, I'm not sure why this is on your list as the only arguement I've seen in favor has basically been the it 'scratches an itch' that is not having all the boxes checked.

That and the idea that we may want Lesser Fear over Greater Fear in some limited situations. But I'm pretty unsure that actually holds water.

I'm not real interested in fighting for more Brettonian recruitment since my hobbyhorses aren't really served by a damsel, and I think we have enough knights to make a go of things now.

So my preferred ranking would be:
1) Join expedition early
2) Fog Path
3) Pall of Darkness if time permits.
 
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Lupercal said:
I'm aware. I have every undead armybook and Night's Dark Masters. The latter does say you should never let players play them. It then included an entire chapter of rules that can only be used to let players play as a vampire.
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I mean, I can understand the kind of base covering mentality here:

"No, don't let them play as vampires. Terrible idea that you'll complain about."
"What? You want to let them play this role anyway? Fine, here's some rules to make it a decent experience. Don't say that I left you to fend for yourself, or limited your freedom of play, or decided to play anyway and then complained at me, completely ignoring the fact that I warned you. Seriously, stop it. Here's a full chapter for you, now please leave me alone!" Said author to their inner representation of his hypothetical problematic players, that also count as inner demons with sheer dread and fear they evoke.

At least, that's what I would think, in their place.
 
Glau said:
This is purely aesthetic at this point, right? Like, I'm not sure why this is on your list as the only arguement I've seen in favor has basically been the it 'scratches an itch' that is not having all the boxes checked.
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BoneyM said:
P / Cloak Activity: Allows you to perform an action while appearing to perform something entirely different for up to half a minute.
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it would give us Cloak Activity.
It would allow Mathilde walking past someone looking like she reads a book or does well, literally anything else, while stabbing them.
 
LightLan said:
it would give us Cloak Activity.
It would allow Mathilde walking past someone looking like she reads a book or does well, literally anything else, while stabbing them.
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Most of this could be achieved with invisibility. Very limited utility, not none by any means but not worth an AP at this point. Especially as learning spells does nothing for your understanding of magic.
 
PurposefulZephyr said:
I mean, I can understand the kind of base covering mentality here:

"No, don't let them play as vampires. Terrible idea that you'll complain about."
"What? You want to let them play this role anyway? Fine, here's some rules to make it a decent experience. Don't say that I left you to fend for yourself, or limited your freedom of play, or decided to play anyway and then complained at me, completely ignoring the fact that I warned you. Seriously, stop it. Here's a full chapter for you, now please leave me alone!" Said author to their inner representation of his hypothetical problematic players, that also count as inner demons with sheer dread and fear they evoke.

At least, that's what I would think, in their place.
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More likely IMO, from currently being involved in writing a large RPG book: It was written by multiple people, and the compiler/publisher didn't notice the "don't play vampires" note in one author's chapter blatantly contradicting the chapter another author had written on how to play vampires.
 
I have campaigned for completing the spell the spellbook for awhile.

but even I think it's an 'after the trip' action.

there is just to much do do right now.
 
picklepikkl said:
I mentioned using an overwork in my post; I think it's likely to be a point of fierce argument next turn. I do not think using our final overwork is a good idea or likely to get traction; it's literally four times as bad as the second overwork.
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Quite agree, I'm tempted by an over work action and doing an arcane mark as well.

Something like

Arcane mark
Assassinate Rotfang
Join expedition early.


Jyn Ryvia said:
I have campaigned for completing the spell the spellbook for awhile.

but even I think it's an 'after the trip' action.

there is just to much do do right now.
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Any reason other than the completionist itch and the comment from lightlan?
 
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